Werner Herzog Creates Required Reading & Movie Viewing Lists for Enrolling in His Film School

“Read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read… read, read… read,” Wern­er Her­zog once said. “If you don’t read, you will nev­er be a film­mak­er.” The direc­tor of Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Fitz­car­ral­do, and Bad Lieu­tenant: Port of Call New Orleans has­n’t dis­tanced him­self from that pro­nounce­ment in assem­bling the cur­ricu­lum for his Rogue Film School, which we first fea­tured last year. Her­zog’s uncon­ven­tion­al crash-course in auteur­ship may promise to cov­er “the art of lock-pick­ing, trav­el­ing on foot, the exhil­a­ra­tion of being shot at unsuc­cess­ful­ly, the ath­let­ic side of film­mak­ing, the cre­ation of one’s own shoot­ing per­mits, the neu­tral­iza­tion of bureau­cra­cy, and gueril­la film­mak­ing,” but it also demands that its stu­dents hit the books.

Here, from the Rogue Film School’s about page, we have its required read­ing:

• Virgil’s “Geor­gics”
• Ernest Hemingway’s “The Short Hap­py Life of Fran­cis Macomber”
• J.A. Bak­er’s The Pere­grine (New York Review Books Edi­tion pub­lished by Harper­Collins)

And its sug­gest­ed read­ing:

• The War­ren Com­mis­sion Report
• The Poet­ic Edda, trans­lat­ed by Lee M. Hol­lan­der (in par­tic­u­lar “The Prophe­cy of the Seer­ess”)
• Bernal Diaz del Castil­lo, True His­to­ry of the Con­quest of New Spain

Like a more stan­dard film school, Her­zog’s pro­gram also has a required film-view­ing list, which includes a few of my own favorite direc­tors (though with noth­ing by Her­zog him­self, not that any stu­dent igno­rant of the man’s work would want to enroll in the first place):

• The Trea­sure of the Sier­ra Madre (1948, dir. John Hus­ton)
• Viva Zap­a­ta (1952, dir. Elia Kazan)
• The Bat­tle of Algiers (1966, dir. Gillo Pon­tecor­vo)
• The Apu tril­o­gy (1955–1959, dir. Satya­jit Ray)
• Where is the Friend’s Home? (1987, dir. Abbas Kiarosta­mi)

Once these mate­ri­als have filled your head with visions of big-game hunt­ing, rebel­lion and counter-rebel­lion, Roman agri­cul­ture, ven­tures into ter­ra incog­ni­ta, com­ing of age in the third world, and the Texas School Book Depos­i­to­ry, will you then find your­self able to make a film? Only if you take these lists as but a start­ing point, and keep on read­ing, read­ing, read­ing, read­ing, and read­ing, as well as watch­ing, watch­ing, watch­ing, watch­ing, and watch­ing. And what about oth­er triv­ial mat­ters, like financ­ing? In more of Her­zog’s own, direct words (though sure­ly said in jest): “Rob a bank, for god’s sake!”

Note: The image used to high­light this post on Twit­ter and Face­book was tak­en by Erinc Salor, and it’s avail­able by Wiki­me­dia Com­mons.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Wern­er Herzog’s Rogue Film School: Apply & Learn the Art of Gueril­la Film­mak­ing & Lock-Pick­ing

Wern­er Her­zog Picks His 5 Favorite Films

Por­trait Wern­er Her­zog: The Director’s Auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal Short Film from 1986

Wern­er Her­zog Gets Shot Dur­ing Inter­view, Doesn’t Miss a Beat

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.